Bonnie Spofforth, one of the first people to falsely claim the Southport stabbing suspect was an asylum seeker who arrived by boat, says she is “ashamed” and “literally devastated”.
The woman accused of first spreading the false rumour that the Southport stabbing suspect was an asylum seeker, says she is “ashamed” and “literally devastated”.
The stabbing deaths of three girls at Taylor Swift’s holiday club in the Merseyside town last week were sparked by false information that the suspect was an asylum seeker who arrived by boat. It has stoked racial violence and unrest, with serious riots in Southport spreading to cities across the country.
Bebe King, Elsie Dot Stancombe and Alice DaSilva Aguiar all died in the stabbings on 29 July. Axel Muganwa Rudakubana, 17, of Banks, Lancashire, has been arrested and charged with three counts of murder.
Cardiff-born Rudakbana is also charged with the attempted murder of yoga teacher Leanne Lucas, businessman John Hayes and their eight children (who cannot be named for legal reasons), and with possessing a curved-blade kitchen knife. Defendant. He was sent to a juvenile detention centre and is due to appear in court again in October.
Shortly after the murders, misinformation about the identity of the alleged attacker began to circulate on TikTok and other social media, including through Bonnie Spofforth, who posted a false name on X. The 55-year-old claimed that the suspect was an asylum seeker named Ali Al Shakati who had been on an MI6 watch list. Your post was probably the first to use this pseudonym, and was then shared by many other accounts.
Ms Spofforth then said she was shocked to be accused of spreading false information. She claims she heard the details from a person in Southport. Her original message was, if it’s true, all hell is about to break loose.
I didn’t make it up. I received this information initially from a person in Southport,” Ms Spofforth, who is from Cheshire and is managing director of a clothing company, continued. “My post had nothing to do with the acts of violence we have seen across the country. However, I accept he may have been a source used by a Russian news website.”
She also told The Times: It was just a mistake. I did something really stupid. I copied and pasted what I saw and added the line “If this is true.”
“People should be very careful about saying what they believe to be true without doing their research first,” she added, before deleting her tweet an hour later. At this point, social media was already flooded with false claims about the suspect.